For Your Life - Celebration Day live version

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I gave this one a good blast today in the car and thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought to myself why such a great track had never made it into Zep's live set during their official existence. I guess the song came towards the end of their run and by that time, choosing a show's set-list was tough when they already had an abundance of massively popular songs, each with their own extended live versions.

As for playing it at the O2, I'm guessing this was a Robert idea, what with his lets-do-something-we-haven't-done-before approach. If it wasn't that, I'm just glad whoever had the suggestion got his way. Fantastic track.

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I gave this one a good blast today in the car and thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought to myself why such a great track had never made it into Zep's live set during their official existence. I guess the song came towards the end of their run and by that time, choosing a show's set-list was tough when they already had an abundance of massively popular songs, each with their own extended live versions.

As for playing it at the O2, I'm guessing this was a Robert idea, what with his lets-do-something-we-haven't-done-before approach. If it wasn't that, I'm just glad whoever had the suggestion got his way. Fantastic track.

Fantastic track indeed. If they had have thrown In the Evening, or All My Love into the set too, it might have been one of their best sets ever.

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I'm no guitarist, so I have no idea about what causes guitars to lose their tuning during live performances. Would Jimmy's Strat problems have anything to do with his particular style of playing, string choice, bad choice of tech, etc?

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I'm no guitarist, so I have no idea about what causes guitars to lose their tuning during live performances. Would Jimmy's Strat problems have anything to do with his particular style of playing, string choice, bad choice of tech, etc?

It's an inherent problem with the Strat - the tremolo wasn't really designed to fully de-tension the strings, which is what Jimmy does just before the solo on In The Evening, and all over For Your Life. That's one of the reasons locking nuts and Floyd-Rose tremolos were developed.

Basically (and I'm really over-simplifying this) there are problems at two major points when you de-tension the strings with the whammy bar - the nut (at the top of the neck), and the bridge.

The strings can stick or catch in the nut (or even slip out - this happened to Jimi Hendrix a lot), and this makes returning back to the correct tuning when the tension is re-applied a bit hit and miss.

At the bridge the strings are bent at a sharp angle over the saddles - which are only held in place by the tension on a spring. There are so many parts that can move and have sufficient friction to grab the string at the wrong point that once again de-tensioning and re-tensioning doesn't always leave you with the strings exactly in tune. Once again, this happened to Hendrix all the time, but he was an absolute expert at pulling the strings into tune with his fingers and tuning on the fly. Jimmy Page was not that sort of player, and once that thing's out of tune it sounds bloody awful.

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I gave this one a good blast today in the car and thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought to myself why such a great track had never made it into Zep's live set during their official existence. I guess the song came towards the end of their run and by that time, choosing a show's set-list was tough when they already had an abundance of massively popular songs, each with their own extended live versions.

As for playing it at the O2, I'm guessing this was a Robert idea, what with his lets-do-something-we-haven't-done-before approach. If it wasn't that, I'm just glad whoever had the suggestion got his way. Fantastic track.

I never really gave this track much of a chance prior to the O2 show. I had my fav Zep songs that I play regularly on my iPod and the rest occasional. The O2 version really made me appreciate this song and it is now one of my favorite Zep songs. The visual effects of this song during the O2 are ingrained in my head and every time I hear the live version my mind wanders back to the show and I feel similar to how I did back then.

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Fantastic track indeed. If they had have thrown In the Evening, or All My Love into the set too, it might have been one of their best sets ever.

I would have loved for them to have played In the Evening, either as the first song to open the show.... or upon coming back for an encore after Kashmir... then ALS for the second encore with R&R.... then it would have been the best set list ever

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This song at the 02 really made me appreciate it more as well. You can tell when they were playing it that they were really getting into it, by their facial gestures, etc. I really think this song played into Robert's vocal range that night too. Good call on their part to include it in the set list!

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It's an inherent problem with the Strat - the tremolo wasn't really designed to fully de-tension the strings, which is what Jimmy does just before the solo on In The Evening, and all over For Your Life. That's one of the reasons locking nuts and Floyd-Rose tremolos were developed.

Basically (and I'm really over-simplifying this) there are problems at two major points when you de-tension the strings with the whammy bar - the nut (at the top of the neck), and the bridge.

The strings can stick or catch in the nut (or even slip out - this happened to Jimi Hendrix a lot), and this makes returning back to the correct tuning when the tension is re-applied a bit hit and miss.

At the bridge the strings are bent at a sharp angle over the saddles - which are only held in place by the tension on a spring. There are so many parts that can move and have sufficient friction to grab the string at the wrong point that once again de-tensioning and re-tensioning doesn't always leave you with the strings exactly in tune. Once again, this happened to Hendrix all the time, but he was an absolute expert at pulling the strings into tune with his fingers and tuning on the fly. Jimmy Page was not that sort of player, and once that thing's out of tune it sounds bloody awful.

That's one of things I like the most about the Hendrix live stuff - he's tuning up before/after every song - doing his "tap dance" as he called it. Plus he would chat up the audience while doing it too. Plant & Hendrix were very chatty with the crowd that's one of the reasons I love the live gigs so much. Hendrix & Zeppelin

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I thought For Your Life sounded a bit flat at O2.I best go back and listen to it at full blast when the missus goes into hospital next week.For the record my Fender strats whammy bar has been discarded and the bridge blocked up with suspension rubbers from an old car wreck.No dive bombing anymore but at least it stays in tune!

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It's an inherent problem with the Strat - the tremolo wasn't really designed to fully de-tension the strings, which is what Jimmy does just before the solo on In The Evening, and all over For Your Life. That's one of the reasons locking nuts and Floyd-Rose tremolos were developed.

Basically (and I'm really over-simplifying this) there are problems at two major points when you de-tension the strings with the whammy bar - the nut (at the top of the neck), and the bridge.

The strings can stick or catch in the nut (or even slip out - this happened to Jimi Hendrix a lot), and this makes returning back to the correct tuning when the tension is re-applied a bit hit and miss.

At the bridge the strings are bent at a sharp angle over the saddles - which are only held in place by the tension on a spring. There are so many parts that can move and have sufficient friction to grab the string at the wrong point that once again de-tensioning and re-tensioning doesn't always leave you with the strings exactly in tune. Once again, this happened to Hendrix all the time, but he was an absolute expert at pulling the strings into tune with his fingers and tuning on the fly. Jimmy Page was not that sort of player, and once that thing's out of tune it sounds bloody awful.

That sweet Alex Lifeson signature PL with the Floyd Rose would solve that problem nicely.

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I thought For Your Life sounded a bit flat at O2.I best go back and listen to it at full blast when the missus goes into hospital next week.For the record my Fender strats whammy bar has been discarded and the bridge blocked up with suspension rubbers from an old car wreck.No dive bombing anymore but at least it stays in tune!

I have a PRS Custom 24 which I love, but the standard trem was just as bad as a strat. I love this guitar so much I decided to bite the bullet and take it to my local guitar tech who installed a locking nut. I thought I would have to go all Floyd Rose but he told me the locking nut should do the trick as long as was not some Adrian Belew or Hendrix wannabe. Since I use the trem for accent mostly and pitch variation the locking nut worked fine and the PRS stays in tune. However when I do play something like ITE where you have extreme de-tensioning or the wacky Hendrix stuff it will still go out of tune, just not as badly. I may go Floyd Rose after all but I hate the thought of re-stringing that monster on there.

Edited August 19, 2015 by IpMan

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I thought For Your Life sounded a bit flat at O2.I best go back and listen to it at full blast when the missus goes into hospital next week.For the record my Fender strats whammy bar has been discarded and the bridge blocked up with suspension rubbers from an old car wreck.No dive bombing anymore but at least it stays in tune!

haha same here, my guitar instructor asked me if I ever used the whammy, I said no so we shoved a piece of wood in there.

I have a PRS Custom 24 which I love, but the standard trem was just as bad as a strat. I love this guitar so much I decided to bite the bullet and take it to my local guitar tech who installed a locking nut. I thought I would have to go all Floyd Rose but he told me the locking nut should do the trick as long as was not some Adrian Belew or Hendrix wannabe. Since I use the trem for accent mostly and pitch variation the locking nut worked fine and the PRS stays in tune. However when I do play something like ITE where you have extreme de-tensioning or the wacky Hendrix stuff it will still go out of tune, just not as badly. I may go Floyd Rose after all but I hate the thought of re-stringing that monster on there.

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It's an inherent problem with the Strat - the tremolo wasn't really designed to fully de-tension the strings, which is what Jimmy does just before the solo on In The Evening, and all over For Your Life. That's one of the reasons locking nuts and Floyd-Rose tremolos were developed.

Basically (and I'm really over-simplifying this) there are problems at two major points when you de-tension the strings with the whammy bar - the nut (at the top of the neck), and the bridge.

The strings can stick or catch in the nut (or even slip out - this happened to Jimi Hendrix a lot), and this makes returning back to the correct tuning when the tension is re-applied a bit hit and miss.

At the bridge the strings are bent at a sharp angle over the saddles - which are only held in place by the tension on a spring. There are so many parts that can move and have sufficient friction to grab the string at the wrong point that once again de-tensioning and re-tensioning doesn't always leave you with the strings exactly in tune. Once again, this happened to Hendrix all the time, but he was an absolute expert at pulling the strings into tune with his fingers and tuning on the fly. Jimmy Page was not that sort of player, and once that thing's out of tune it sounds bloody awful.

Install a Fender Roller Nut (same as the Jeff Beck model) and add locking tuners and the guitar stays in tune even with excessive whammy bar use. This was standard on the Fender Strat Plus model as well. Jimmy used a Fender Strat Plus on his Outrider tour. On the track For Your Life, he used his Lake Placid Blue Stratocaster but I'm sure his guitar tech added oil or graphite on the nut to help the tuning. Jimmy also used this guitar live with the Firm. On the track Cadillac he uses the whammy bar quite a bit as well.

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I'll admit that "For Your Life" has never even been in my top 50 LZ songs, before or after the O2 show, and when I watch the O2 show live I'm still not that swayed by it. Indeed when I first saw the set-list for O2 it was For Your Life in particular I was down on, given the many other songs I would've rather seen them play at the reunion.

But listening to Celebration Day several times recently without the visuals, I've formed a different opinion about the show in general, and that song in particular. I think they steadily built up steam & cohesiveness through the first half-dozen songs (hitting For Your Life spot-on), and then hit the peak at "Trampled Under Foot", "Nobody's Fault But Mine", and especially "No Quarter". The lads absolutely killed those 3 consecutive songs. Then I think the show slowed down, and had lost some of its energy by the time they launched into "Stairway". That's understandable, considering they aren't 27 any longer!

The one song I wish they'd brought out in public for the first time was, and has always been, in my Led Zeppelin Top 5: "The Rover". Easily the most underrated song in the LZ catalog, and Jason Bonham's playing that night would've done it great justice. Yes, I know they played it sloppy-but-loose at sound checks like Chicago '75, and its intro was used to transition into "Sick Again" on the '77 tour, but they never played it sober. Given how tight they played the night of the O2 show that song would've slayed.

Back to the subject: as of my latest O2 listenings I have changed the object of my set-list replacement fantasy: For Your Life can stay, and The Rover replaces "Misty Mountain Hop". That way we have "Song Remains the Same" into The Rover and then straight into "Kashmir", a killer back end of the set leading to the encores.

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For Your Life is just about my favorite thing from O2. When I first heard it on the original bootlegs I could not believe that they played it and how absolutely powerful it was. Always one of my favorite songs. The lyrics and music are so strong. It was a new type of riff and rhythm for them in 1975 and it still sounds fresh today. At O2 Robert sang his heart out on this one. A very special moment indeed.

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Yes. It was brilliant. As was everything on that magic occasion. Think my order of faves from the O2 would be the same as the order of my Led Zep studio track releases. When i listen to the cd i get all high. It is special to me because i lived through it. I am too young for everything else.

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For Your Life was definitely tight at O2 (as were most of the songs, but FYL was noticeably so). And by that I mean tight like at literally no other time before. In the early years ('68-'72) they were playfully tight whereas in 2007 it was "OK, tonight we have a legacy to prove; we're going to be professionally tight".

People lived entire lives in the roughly 35 years between O2 and the '73 UK tour (what I consider maybe the last of the early tight era). Kudos to the band for shaking off their inner demons and digging deep to rediscover the magic after so much time!